Cooking over a barbecue has been a favorite pastime of many home chefs as well as a culinary art practiced by a large number of well known and local restaurant chefs. Conventionally, charcoal or other briquettes are positioned within the confines of a metal housing and ignited to burn. At a point where the briquettes are not flaming and are akin to glowing coals of a wood fire, food is cooked over the burning briquettes.
In preparation for the cooking of food over the glowing coals, conventionally, the briquettes are fired using an accelerant such as lighter fluid or similar material. This involves forming a stack of the briquettes in a fashion to best confine the heat generated to the stacked briquettes, to thereby communicate the majority of heat generated to the briquettes themselves in the confined stack.
At a point where the cook determines the briquettes are sufficiently self-generating heat which can be employed for food cooking, the briquettes are conventionally spread evenly about a shelf of the barbecue housing. Thereafter, metal grill plates are positioned to cover the area of the briquettes, such that food placed upon the grill plates will be heated by the underlying briquettes for a sufficient duration to cook the food.
During this procedure, the user is generally required to initially stack the briquettes into a confined pile, and once ignited sufficiently, the user must then spread the briquettes evenly into a cooking layer. Once the briquettes are evenly spread in the shelf of the barbecue housing, the user will engage the grill plates operatively with the perimeter edge of the housing such that the perimeter of the grill plates will hold the grill plates elevated a distance above the underlying briquettes providing the heat for cooking.
The device and method herein disclosed, provides a multi function barbecue tool employable by the cook or barbecue user, which is adapted in a central portion with an insulated handle for gripping. Extending away from one end of the handle, along an axis of the handle, is a hook portion formed of a hooked member which is configured in size to engage and lift and lower the grill plates which vary in size and support spacing on many barbecues. During this lifting, the device maintains the hands of the user insulated and a safe distance from the briquette fire as well as the heated grill plates. The member formed to a hook portion is also employable to hold the device during storage in-between uses.
Extending from the opposite end of the insulated handle is a U-shaped member portion of the tool. This U-shaped portion is formed by a curvilinear member extending in a U-Shape from a first end engaged with the handle to a second end engaged to the handle. This portion of the tool is sized for employment in stacking and unstacking the charcoal briquettes employed to provide the cooking heat to food placed upon the grill plates.
The forgoing examples of barbecues and the firing of briquettes and placement of grill plates, and the limitations related therewith, are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. The disclosed examples and background does not imply any limitations on the invention described and claimed herein. Various other limitations of the related art in barbecues are known, or such will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading and understanding of the specification below and the accompanying drawings.